the HOT List

Thursday's trading on Wall Street ended with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounding by nearly 100 points. However, Nasdaq was off 7.32 points. For media stocks, the bleeding continued yet again for Comscore. Why? It lost another C-Suite executive.

Nearly two years ago, twin FMs in a simulcast aired a weather teaser for its morning show that included a simulation of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) attention signal. That's a no-no, and the FCC has now acted against the properties, owned by Meruelo Media.

Much was shared regarding iHeartMedia's business plan in what seemed like a Q2 soliloquy from Chairman/CEO Bob Pittman, including how the company eagerly jumped into podcasting as competitors did not. But, how did iHeart do financially in the quarter?

If only ratings points directly correlated to revenue. Univision and broadcast network sibling UniMás may be "the only broadcast networks to grow viewership from a year ago," but parent company Univision Communications saw its net revenue and net income shrink in Q2.

At precisely 2:14pm Eastern, CBS Corp. confirmed what nearly everyone who follows the broadcast media industry already anticipated. CBS is combining with Viacom some 13 years and eight months after CBS spun-off from Viacom to create two separate companies.

On Aug. 18, 1978, the El Paso DMA received its first locally based PBS member station. Roughly three years later, it shifted to Channel 13 on the dial. Now, just days before its 41st birthday, a merger of resources and programming with another PBS station is about to happen.

Until now, a company that's been hiring in Atlanta and New York has been promoting software designed to help local TV attract advertising clients as digital media sucks away the dollars and business. Now, similar software is being pitched to local radio, and Entercom is on board.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a lower court ruling that ruled the satellite radio service and owner of Pandora is perfectly allowed to use publicly available motor vehicle records to solicit potential subscribers. The implications are huge.

After nearly three weeks and much press attention, one of two protracted retransmission consent battles involving AT&T's television services platforms has ended. Full coverage for CBS has been restored across all DMAs. But, Nexstar-owned CBS stations remain dark.

On a same-station basis, Cumulus Media's second quarter financial results don't look so bad. But, will more focus be placed on the as-reported overall results, considered the Wall Street standard? If so, Cumulus and its leader, Mary Berner, could be in for a bumpy ride.

For some, the biggest news from Entercom is the company's acquisition of podcast producer Pineapple Street and the outstanding shares of Cadence13, a podcast creator and distributor it has had a 45% stake in since August 2017. For Wall Street, disappointing Q2 results could be the bigger story. ETM finished down 36% to $3.36 on massive volume of 15.5 million shares.

It's a new day for Sinclair Broadcast Group, which one year ago was grappling with the fact that it would not be merging with Tribune Media. Thanks to a strong Q2 performance, Sinclair is on solid footing for a bright future, with FOX RSNs set to boost profits.

Investors appear to be somewhat wary of Nexstar's growth plan. Even with a largely positive Q2 earnings release, the company's shares are slumping on Wall Street. A lack of a retransmission consent pact with one of the two DBS providers is the likely reason.

For Hispanic media company Entravision, net revenue was down as the company swung to a net loss of more than $16 million. The company is blaming its revenue dip for "a trend" — a shift to self-service programmatic platforms. Investors sent EVC down 11% on Wednesday.

In January 2016, Cumulus Media and the FCC agreed to settle an investigation into whether the radio group violated the commission’s sponsorship ID rules. Now, the FCC says the company has violated the terms of a Consent Decree reached to civilly resolve the matter.